This study mainly focusses on the rheological properties of the nanofluids by using Koo–Kleinstreuer–Li model. The nanofluids have been proposed as viable replacements to traditional fluids due to their increased heat transport capacity. In this regard, the influence of non-uniform heat sink/source and thermal radiation effects on the nanoliquid flow past a stretching sheet is studied in the presence of chemical reaction and magnetic dipole. The defined flow equations are transformed to ordinary differential equations by using appropriate similarity variables and then they are numerically tackled with Runge Kutta Fehlberg-45 (RKF-45) scheme by adopting shooting process. The graphical outcomes of the velocity, thermal, concentration profiles, drag force, Sherwood number and Nusselt number are found to get an obvious insight into the existing boundary layer flow problem. The outcomes reveal that, the gain in values of radiation parameter improves the thermal profile due to the production of inner heat.The rise in Biot number improves the thermal boundary layer region which automatically boosts up the thermal profile. Further, the escalation in space-dependent internal heat sink/source parameter deteriorates the rate of heat transfer.